Day 4 in Curly Girl

Started my “curly girl” journey on Sunday, so I’m on my 4th day of the process.

After Monday’s craziness, my hair was pretty much a monstrosity. I slept with it in the customary pineapple, but since it was already dead from touching it so much, I decided to go in for a full wash and condition yesterday, Tuesday.

Used my NYM naturals shampoo and coated my hair with a ton of conditioner. Then I piled my hair up on top of my head and let it sit while I finished my shower.

After that, I scrunched the conditioner in while doing a very gentle cold-water rinse and scrunched the conditioner in really well. Purposefully didn’t fully rinse it out. Then scrunched my gel in like I did the first time.

Plopped my hair for a few minutes and then let it airdry. For like 5 hours. It takes so much longer to dry with product in it. I think on my next wash I’m going to do a better job of scrunching out the moisture with a microfiber towel or t-shirt before I settle in on the air-drying.

My hair looked pretty great after it dried actually. Lots of volume and big, lovely curls. I chose the worst week to start this journey because we’ve finally been getting a bit of rain, so it’s generally been cloudy and extra humid, even when it’s not raining.

Then again, this is Georgia. Even in September, it’s typically pretty darn humid down here.

So by the time I was ready for bed some of the curls on the top layere or “canopy” of my hair were falling down. Still, I pineappled it up and went to sleep. My satin pillowcases haven’t come in, and I don’t really own any scarves that aren’t thick, fuzzy ones that are purely for practical purposes of keeping warm, so I didn’t really have anything to protect my hair from the friction, so my hair got a bit frizzed up during the night.

If I didn’t have so many back issues, I might be able to lay still and it wouldn’t matter as much. But my back gets stiff throughout the night and I wake up and have to turn over a lot. And I’m a side sleeper, so I can’t just lay on my back and then cover up the messed up part.

Anyway, when I took it down this morning, it was huuuuuge from having it up on my head. It looked pretty great on the front right side, but on the left, it was sticking straight out from my head. So tons of volume, but really crazy. And in the back, it was mostly a frizzy mess, with just some loose, unstructured waves.

So I tried my first good “refresh.” I comandeered my spray bottle that I usually keep at my painting station in the office, and spritzed my hair down, without wetting it all the way through. Just enough to get it a little damp. I was a bit amazed at how much better it looked after just scrunching the water in. I used my Cantu refresher spray, but this time I just spritzed several squirts in my hand, rubbed them together, and glazed it over my hair and then scrunched it in, focusing on the ends, which are a little ratty from so much heat damage. Then I added a little gel and scrunched that in, again focusing on the tips.

This sounds really long and drawn out, but the whole process took maybe 4 minutes. And it’s only been about a half hour and it’s almost completely dry, which is really great compared to that all-day hair drying when I do a full wash.

I’m going to give it about another half hour before I scrunch out the crunchiness, to make sure the gel gets fully set, and then see how it holds up throughout the day.

It’s weird how much more feminine and soft I feel just by letting my hair do its natural thing. It feels light and beautiful and I feel pretty without even having any make-up on. I think that’s the most valuable part of this. I’ve always said I loved my hair. That’s the one quality I have that I don’t hate about myself. Because my hair is so long, and you probably guessed by my username, ginger. It’s really more of a strawberry blonde, but more on the red side than the blonde side. So a golden sort of ginger.

So what does it say about me that it’s my favorite feature and I’ve chosen to abuse it and fry it into submission for the last 15+ years?

I feel like this could be a baby step in the direction of overall health and taking care of myself. It may seem silly when put that way to someone on the outside, but I’ve always had pretty terrible self-esteem. And maybe my hair is where it all started. I had Shirley Temple ringlets when I was a little girl. And I HATED it. All of my friends had straight hair, even in elementary school. And I coveted that straight, fine, silky look. When people would compliment my curls, I got even more self-conscious about them. So after my first real haircut, I tried to dry it straight or brush it straight for years before I discovered the flat iron.

If I can take care of this wild mess of hair on my head, maybe I can also take care of my exercise and diet better. One-by-one, find out what’s good for each part of my body, and start showing myself the love and care I deserve, and treat myself right.

Again, maybe that’s silly, but it’s a thought. And it couldn’t hurt!